The King of Gimmicks has arrived to the live servers. And with it has come many extremes and some entirely new playstyles. And no I'm not talking about how this tank is a camper's dream, In order to win games in this tank it's alot more complicated than what many of us are used to in a paper TD and a paper tank in general. No this tank is a breath of fresh air from the Grille 15 and unlike the Grille it's a much higher skill ceiling tank to play. Quite frankly I'm sure that if you straight up used free xp to get the thing day 1 with no prior experience in siege mode from the test server; that you're going to be in for a rough ride.

I'm here to ask and answer the question: Is the tank worth it? And while I might say "HOLY SHIT YES" therein lies the problem with this tank in general. It's a very niche tank for the player base. It requires alot ofpatience, map awareness, reading the flow of battle, picking the engagement, and lastly selfishness. If you go into battle without a single one of these then you're going to have a bad time. There are the one off battles where you can throw these ideas to the wind and still come out pretty well, but for consistency's sake I'm going to say that you need all of these to manage over 3800+ dpg.

I'll write a guide later, but this a review. So I'm going to give a list of Pros and Cons regarding the tank and a model of its armor viewer

Pros:

4225 MAX DPM (Tortoise has 4270, but it's a shit platform and the 103B actually beats its reload by .08 seconds) Imho this tank really has the highest DPM in the game because it isnt held back by a shitty platform.

Mobility and Finesse is fantastic. So I did some digging on tanks.gg and I found that the STRV 103B while it's overall HP/Ton isn't that great looking; It has the same terrain resistances than the leopard 1 and basically moves like the old 4202 at tier 10. And for those of you who are fairly new to the game It's a fucking rocket forward and reverse.

Speaking of reverse, It goes fucking 45 in reverse (50 forward) allowing it's bullshit gimmick armor to bear the punishment as you run away.

With Clutch Breaking (driver crew skill) It rotates at 43 deg/s

The gun itself has great DPM, but for the first time in WoT isn't hampered by shitty gun handling or penetration. There is no way to see the stats within siege mode regarding the accuracy, but WG did say somewhere that it was .25 shortly before release. Even in the garage it stands out with .27 accuracy.

Inside of siegemode when rotating the hull the gun has 0 dispersion making it the best snap shotter in the game in this situation.

Camo/Binocs dont deactivate while rotating in siege mode (Not limited to only this tank UDES and 103-0 share this trait).

Slim profile and E25 camo at tier 10: The tank can hide behind the smallest depressions and cover not to mention its 49.5% camo with a full camo crew.

Neutral:

The armor profile itself; I'll go into depth in a bit.

Cons:

Absolutely useless outside of siege mode. The gun is locked to the hull so of course it would be.

Siege mode is really only handy at mid to long range. If you dont have a wall to back into you're fucked.

It's light weight (37 tons) means anything can bully you. When you raise the rear of your hull to get better depression brain dead retards think its funny to push you around and make you flip.

Frontal engine makes you burst into flames more than California's forest fires.

3 crew, the fucking radioman is the loader.

Armor is useless against calibers of 150mm or higher due to overmatch mechanics.

Huge tracks make getting tracked very easy

Very prone to module damage from HE

Only 1800 HP

For people who arent up to the level of doing 3-4k+ avg dpg, city maps you are nearly useless in city maps without adequate skill.

Fuck artillery (Self explanatory)

360 base VR

Temporary Con:

Right now it is extremely difficult to 2 mark let alone 3 mark due to low amounts of people actually having the damned thing. (Took me 4400 raw dpg to do).

So if a 103B is looking directly at you like this you can try to shoot the beak if you have a 122mm caliber gun or greater, but it wont be reliable unless you're very close. Your only option is above the gun or the cupolas really. And HEAT wont work because those blue/purple colored boxes are spaced armor which will eat your heat rounds. If you're a caliber of 100mm 105mm or 120mm your only option is the cupolas. If you're a 122, 128, 130 or 140mm cupolas or above the gun. 150mm+ shoot anywhere because LOLXD OVERMATCH HEHE.

TLDR of this review: This is a VERY difficult tank to use and get used to no matter the skill of the player. The skill ceiling is sitting in the stratosphere for this tank, but for those of us who have a semblance of what we're doing; we're playing a god tier machine capable of easily soaring over 7k damage games consistently regardless of map. My best games so far have been on Paris for example.

For my playstyle yes, but there are many more cons than the ones that I listed because many are "situational" or "theoretical." Such as HTs peeking a corner because 390 alpha is not 750+ alpha. It's a great break from these brick Casemate TDs slugging it out with super heavies, but the cons are not enough to justify it being the best TD in the game because it's direct line of competition is the grille right now, but if WG nerfs the Grille in the future who knows?

For my playstyle yes, but there are many more cons than the ones that I listed because many are "situational" or "theoretical." Such as HTs peeking a corner because 390 alpha is not 750+ alpha. It's a great break from these brick Casemate TDs slugging it out with super heavies, but the cons are not enough to justify it being the best TD in the game because it's direct line of competition is the grille right now, but if WG nerfs the Grille in the future who knows?

How do you play it on city maps? Waiting for people to expose their track and permatrack?

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How do you play it on city maps? Waiting for people to expose their track and permatrack?

I first see if they have a majority of Heavies over Medium tanks. This will dictate where I go because this tank is primarily suited in destroying mediums. If I'm going against E5s or T57s I can give up most of my armor because pubbies still generally dont know where to aim and probably will never learn either. And just farm. It's the big 155mm guns you have to avoid, but sometimes you literally cant so your best hope is to beat them down with raw dpm. Tracking goes without saying regardless of map. Typically you'll want to go towards the engagements where you can maximize your armor. This will be any tank with sub 121mm in caliber. They'll one off your cupola or hit it a few times but your dpm is so brutal that most of the time they'll die or be seriously damaged by the time they can even put 2/3 shots out.

I'm at the tier 8 and it is a juggernaut of brutality and self inflicted pain and suffering the likes of which I have never felt in the game before. I think T8-10 are some of the best looking tanks out there so I'll fail through them and work on learning but damn It is hard to use.

It requires alot ofpatience, map awareness, reading the flow of battle, picking the engagement, and lastly selfishness. If you go into battle without a single one of these then you're going to have a bad time. There are the one off battles where you can throw these ideas to the wind and still come out pretty well, but for consistency's sake I'm going to say that you need all of these to manage over 3800+ dpg.

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GLD is a waste - go binocs. They don't deactivate while turning in siege mode so it actually works much better than on other tanks.

This. When you get to a good bush regardless of tank that you're in DESU 03, STRV 103-0, or the 103B with proper crew skills and vents you can completely get rid of camo net anyway due to camo crew, but when you're in siegemode in just the right position; you will outspot even the best camo tanks on the other team as well as stealing the LT's spotting.

Hey Assad, I'm currently at 64% after 120 games in this tank, with 3.3k average damage. I'm having a really hard time finding the correct positions on maps that are not huge open areas like malinovka, phrok, sand river, etc. I simply cannot be consistent on maps like ensk, himmelsdorf (fine when there is no arty aiming hill at least), and a few others. It's a night and day difference when you can go as high as 7k damage in a easy game on erlenberg, and 1.2k on Abbey.

I absolutely love this tank. The other day I was debating how I was going to deal with Batchat +T-54 + other support on Fjords north from the western spawn. I was thinking of how I was going to deal with their superiour amount of tanks and firepower.

Then I realised I was in an Strv 130B. So I just stood in front of them and bounced all their shots.

I absolutely love this tank. The other day I was debating how I was going to deal with Batchat +T-54 + other support on Fjords north from the western spawn. I was thinking of how I was going to deal with their superiour amount of tanks and firepower.

Then I realised I was in an Strv 130B. So I just stood in front of them and bounced all their shots.

The tank has stopping power like no other, if 103B is spotted on the flank I'm pushing and in a good spot, i just tend to change flank or find another route. I don't fear the gun that much(which is very good in its own right), but the fact that I cannot hurt it back is the fear factor for me.

It's ofc a whole different story if I'm in a high caliber armament tank, but not like you're gonna hit the damn tank from 350+ meters if it's hulldown, before it wrecks you.

Options

Soooo, I got a message when I loaded into the game this evening. "you have unused rewards please use before 1.4" Or words to that effect. I selected which tanks to apply the bonus to. Do I also have to assign the girl crew members? I vaguely remember from last year that you keep them, but as always WG's potato communication doesn't make it clear..... Just said I'd ask here to save myself from having to visit the main forums.

I hate that f*king capping mission for 260 (LTs)...
It's a hair-pulling nightmare. The description should seriously read "Go ahead and sit in cap circle and have fun while missing out on all the easy cleanup damage and enjoy your frustration after, when your teammates manage to kill the enemy team 2 seconds before you cap."
OMFG.. Any advice on how to do this without becoming crazy?